The archive for Art Trujillo's award-winning column

Monthly Archives: December 2004

Two new year’s resolutions, made almost a year ago will expire in two days.
One was to stop supporting credit card companies single-handedly. That resolution has come to a happy ending, our having reduced our debt to about one-fourth of what it was a year ago.
The second resolution–made also by many of you–was to shed pounds. A little more than a year ago, a column I wrote gave details of my weight, which at the time would have made a sumo wrestler envious: 234 pounds.

This season we attended three holiday programs featuring youngsters.
Given the amount of time teachers have to slap their programs into place, it’s amazing how well everyone seems to perform.
We could, of course, wonder why every child sings the same thing for every song. Variation would be nice, soloists, for example, and perhaps a few different carols.
By necessity the selections were secular: no more “Away in a Manger,” or “Silent Night.” Instead, we got “Jingle Bells,” mega-doses of “Rudolph,” and “Frosty the Snowman.” This certainly is a secular season.

Walking has always been an important part of fitness. Years ago my three-and-a-half-mile walk to church was highlighted by being able to wave to people I knew.
That was before every windshield got tinted. Strange, but caring friends and neighbors invariably slowed down to offer me a ride, when I didn’t need one. But the times when I was stranded, due to a flat tire or mechanical breakdown, people would just whiz by.
Because of the chubbifying of America, doctors and other health care experts tout the benefits of activity, walking being one of them.

What can a person in my situation want for Christmas? Would you believe my letter to Santa will be a request for less mail?
Let me explain:
Nobody in the private sector could possibly receive more mail than my family. There was a time when we’d rush to the mailbox and sometimes receive a letter, an actual hand-written (or even typed or computer-generated) letter bearing a real signature.

Less than a year ago, at halftime of the Super Bowl, a “wardrobe malfunction” involving performers Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson exposed one of her breasts, throwing millions into high dudgeon.
So skittish is the regulatory agency, the FCC, over the fallout of the breast that launched a million ships, lips and heart-skips, that it’s warning the networks of what “family hour” used to mean.